


L'étranger

by lunicole



Series: Le Code de l'indigénat [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Algerian War, Cambodian-Vietnamese War, Cold War, Colonialism, F/M, Historical, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 14:55:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3414905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunicole/pseuds/lunicole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's an odd kind of letter to be receiving, in a way. Vietnam wonders if it's because of shared experiences, or simply because Algeria doesn't have many friends anyway, many friends that aren't interested to drag him into that very peculiar dick measuring contest America and Russia are having with each other. It's an odd kind of time to live in anyway, with Vietnam's lands split into two parts that claim to be her. Cold comfort in colder wars. Modernity has this odd way of making the old certitudes fly away, a bit like the years before France, before the bloody wars that had brought her mighty empire, and its celestial aspirations, to its knees. France. France with his smile and his cock and his empty promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L'étranger

1962  
  
It's an odd kind of letter to be receiving, in a way. Vietnam wonders if it's because of shared experiences, or simply because Algeria doesn't have many friends anyway, many friends that aren't interested to drag him into that very peculiar dick measuring contest America and Russia are having with each other. It's an odd kind of time to live in anyway, with Vietnam's lands split into two parts that claim to be her. Cold comfort in colder wars. Modernity has this odd way of making the old certitudes fly away, a bit like the years before France, before the bloody wars that had brought her mighty empire, and its celestial aspirations, to its knees. France. France with his smile and his cock and his empty promises.  
  
Still, she picks it up from the table on which she had left it the day before, unsure if she really wants to read it. She has read the papers, heard about the tanks rolling in the streets of Algiers, read Russia's gleeful letter to her that said a lot but promised very little. It's typical, in a way.  
  
Vietnam reads Algeria's letter without much attention, because she already knows what's in it. There's that very amusing way Algeria uses French words to their full effect while constantly borrowing images and allegories Vietnam knows come from the foreign sounds of Berber and Arabic, and it makes her smile. Somehow, it's better to imagine the face of the lanky, loud-mouthed friend from North-Africa, with his constant hand gestures and manners that contrasted so starkly with Vietnam's stoicness. It's the same glee of freedom she can feel in his pen, and dreamy aspirations that she felt decades ago.   
  
Vichy.  _L'occupation_. Japan had been bone-breaking terrible, with his ever soft voice as he ordered men to walk to death, and Vietnam had hated, hated, hated him, hiding behind a soft smile and a slight bowing of the head.   
  
She didn't know Germany, only heard the vague mentions of a tall man with blond hair and hands that had crushed France with the unflinching hardness of steel. Japan spoke of him with very few words but a gaze that meant more than it should have. It made Vietnam feel more alive. She could only hope that, back in that faraway metropolis that was Paris, France felt as terrible as she had done, half a century ago, when he had talked to her with soft-spoken hypocrisy about the  _mission civilisatrice_  of the White Man. Somehow, she doubted it.   
  
Japan hadn't taken her the way France had done, nothing of that gross and sickening false pretends that, years ago, Vietnam believed. Japan had made her kneel, slapping her face, hard and unflinching, whenever she dared to speak to him in anything but shaky Japanese. She had hated him, with a passion that only burned brighter because of the past admiration she had born him, in what seemed like lifetimes past.  
  
"You're only being a pessimist," Siam would say. (He would also correct her,  _Thailand, Thailand is my name now_ , but it never really did properly stick.) "Japan is on our side. You are only saying this because of your own bitterness and failures."   
  
Siam didn't say anything about his own people working themselves to death for the might of the Rising Sun's Empire, back then. Vietnam had never been good at reading Siam, his odd little mannerisms and double-sided words, but she could see that thing that hid in the corner of his eyes and along the curve of his mouth. Bitterness, maybe, with a hint of resentment for things better left unsaid.  
  
Japan had left and come back, new scars on his back when Vietnam helped him change. He told her he would set her free for her help, and he did, but she never cared much for promises, especially towards someone who had killed people she considered hers.  
  
"I should have known better," Japan observed, unapologetic as ever, and he was weary, when they met again, years later. Cold Wars emerging out of the burning scars of the atom bomb. "It's the Chinese blood in your veins."  
  
Vietnam tries not to dwell on the past too much nowadays. She has to stop herself from going back to the memories. It's not good to do so, with America and Russia and China, because it's always about China, one way or another, playing older brothers and always scheming, always plotting each other's downfall. Wars and peace and birth and death.   
  
There’s the bombs now, Ho Chi Minh’s speeches ringing in her ears, exiled puppet emperors, the North and the South and the war, always at warm, just like in the old times, when she marched South with the hardness of iron. She hates America and sometimes she loves him, but not the same way she had loved and hated France.   
  
He’s here to help her. He’s here to destroy her. Vietnam doesn’t know. He reminds her too much of France, too much of his hollow promises and soft caresses. It’s the glint in his eyes, and passion in his voice. It’s the way she can’t help but to wonder what exactly is happening to Philippines, to Indonesia, to Burma and to Siam in this new war they call Cold, even though all she ever sees from it is fire and blood.  
  
Better not to think about it too much, in a way.  
  
It's a funny feeling to be writing back to Algeria, to invite him back in Saigon, before the rain season starts. Her hand is shaking, a little bit, but her handwriting is as neat as it always was, be it in the form of millennial ideograms taught with the harsh Chinese discipline, or the roman letters France picked for her, one by one, with kisses that felts like burns on her forehead. She doesn't have the same way with words Algeria has, but it doesn't matter. He'll come, and they'll have  _nems_  with  _nước mắm_  among the remnants of the colonial pigs that administered  _Poulo Condore_  in the hall of the  _Grand Hotel_.  
  
Outside, the sun shines over Cochinchina.  
  
.  
  
1972  
  
Algeria is several years late, in a fashion that shouldn't surprise Vietnam even though it always does. The rain season has already started for weeks when she finally hears from him. He's in Saigon, and he wants to see her. Saigon. It feels weird (wrong) to have so many Americans walking its streets, just like the French would, back in the days. It feel weird not to know who or what is an enemy anymore.   
  
They’ll be leaving soon, however. Vietnam still doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. At least monks aren’t setting themselves on fire in broad daylight anymore, legs crossed in the lotus position as they turn to dust, unmoved. Maybe.  
  
Algeria doesn't comment on any of this, not really, his bony hands in the pockets of his too-large linen suit. He’s lost weight since the last time they saw each other, and the cigarettes he smokes are smelly and acrid and Russian. Vietnam doesn’t comment on any of this either, not out of politeness but because she knows it would be a double-sided sword to play with. She knows better than to walk into a trap that she knows will eat her alive. She doesn’t like Russia nearly as much as Algeria does, probably.  
  
They're sitting on the wicker chairs of Vietnam's small house in the periphery of the city, legs crossed as she serves his fresh leaves green tea without a word. Algeria talks a lot, and she doesn't need to ask him questions to keep him going. He does those elegant drawn out hand gestures, tells her about a places she's never seen, probably never will.  
  
He's too comfortable in the evening, too calm, as if the world isn't about to go out in flames, as if he doesn't know what is happening with them and the rest, abandoned prodigal sons of the Empire.  
  
"You're a child of the monsoon season," Algeria says with a little laugh. "The desert would kill you, I fear. Still, I hope one day you will come, and we'll have coffee in the streets of Oran."  
  
He says it like he means it, and in a way, Vietnam knows that he really does.  
  
"It sounds like the kind of things France would say," she can’t stop herself from saying.  
"I can't help it. It seems that he rubbed that kind of thing onto me."  
  
He smiles, and there's something in his eyes as he does, his hands carefully unfolding from his lap to trace the side of Vietnam's face. She almost leans into the touch, almost, because it's better than whatever it is that friends or masters, comrades or killers, lovers or invaders ever did to her.  
  
"Do you miss him?" he asks.  
"No."  
  
She prefers not to dwell upon the past, nowadays, but she’s found out that she also prefers not to think about the future, not now, not ever, or so it seems. She’s tried to fight it away, but it all comes back, now that Algeria is there, now that America is leaving, now that China is shaking hands with the West,  _Big Brother China_  that seemed so close to change the world, with red books, and fire and blood.  
  
Vietnam remembers it, now, the first encounters, how ugly and primitive the White Man had seemed, in its wooden boats and smelly ways, the Portuguese and the Dutch, the English and the French she had sent away with a self-satisfied look. She remembers being proud, being strong, being at the top of the world, walking South, West, destroying worlds, destroying the great Khmer, always. She remembers how huge China and Siam had seemed, all those centuries ago. She remembers it all crashing down with a few French words and a knowing smile that would literally turn her world upside down.  
  
“ _Ma petite chérie, vous voyez bien qu’il n’y a pas d’autre solution logique au problème auquel nous sommes confrontés. Soyez une bonne fille, et laissez-moi me charger de vous; c’est parce que je vous aime tant que je fais tout ceci._ ”  
  
The worst thing about France hadn’t been the wars, the conquest, the feeling of her own destiny slipping away from her fingers. It hadn’t been him building a summer house over what used to be hers and hers alone, making her a servant on her own soil, making her his whenever he wanted. The worst about France had been that he had made her world, the world of mandarin and emperors, of pride and delicate chinese characters, fall into piece in front of her eyes.  
  
It takes her a while to talk again. She's not lying but she's not telling the truth. Algeria sees it, of course he does, and frowns. She lowers her eyes.  
  
"I don't know," she catches herself saying. "I wish I knew."  
  
Algeria sighs, and Vietnam can't identify if it's anger or understanding. His hand is warm, and if fall on her shoulder softly.  
  
He doesn't have to say it, not really, because Vietnam knows. Algeria had hated him so much sometimes his breath would get stuck in my throat and he couldn't breathe. Still, there were things that did not change, sometimes, with the feeling of phantom ache at memories that were better left buried in the sands of the Sahara desert.  
  
"I'm sorry about that. About everything."  
  
Vietnam doesn't have to say that she is, too.   
  
They don't fuck. Algeria sleeps in her bed, his arms around her and his breath tickling her neck, but their embrace is chaste, in a way. They will never know each other like this, Vietnam can't help but to think. There would be something almost incestuous about it.  
  
Still, it's almost love, almost, when he kisses her cheek, as a last goodbye. The rain is still falling, dampness in her hair, on her skin and in her heart. She knows history never forgives, and that Algeria, under the quiet looks and soft smiles, almost reeks of blood as much as she does.  
  
.  
  
1991  
  
It's a surprise to find him here, of all places. Algeria shouldn't be here. No one should be here, no one, not after Cambodia cut off her own tongue and swallowed it never to speak about what she had done to herself. He looks at her, for a moment, and it's weird, because they used to share so many things, letters across oceans, and the same feeling that the world would be ready, one day, for a brighter future.  
  
They don’t, not anymore. There’s no French Empire, no Soviet Union anymore, and Europe is celebrating its newfound unity, as if the war, all wars had ended. They haven’t, not really, or maybe the war, the Great Cold War, had ended years ago already, when China had stopped caring about whatever was right or wrong, shaking hands with humans that destroyed, fire blazing in the Laotian countryside, Cambodia,  _no, Kampuchea_ , driving herself mad with grief and anger, driving tank in the streets of Phnom Penh, driving her own people to their own graves, arresting, confessing, killing, arresting, confessing, killing. Wars to end all wars. War weary of all wars. Wars, wars, wars.  
  
“We’ll always have Paris,” Algeria says, and he lights a cigarette, sitting on a terrasse chair and looking at Vietnam with an amused smile. Vietnam doesn’t get the reference.  
  
She sits down, watches him, sighs. He’s changed but he hasn’t changed, and he looks weary, in a way that shouldn’t surprise Vietnam like it does. It almost seems like he was waiting for her, here, and maybe he was. She sits down, looks at him, and there’s still that missing person between them. She doesn’t dare asking him why he’s here. She doesn’t dare to ask him anything.  
  
“I remember the first time I came here,” he says softly, pouring milk in his coffee. It’s a nice day in Paris, as nice as Paris can get, grey and rainy as it is compared to the warm banks of the Mediterranean. “I hated it right away. Some things never really do change, do they?”  
  
There’s another one of those half-smile, the ones that don’t mean anything and yet somewhat mean everything. It’s the way his sunkissed skin wrinkles on the side of his eyes, and his sharply white his teeth are.  
  
“It’s true.” is all Vietnam can say.  
  
Algeria chuckles, briefly.  
  
“Do you have any news from Russia?” he asks, and he’s only half-serious.   
  
No one has news from Russia, not personal ones anyway, only stories of broken walls, countries united or separated, the world toppling on itself and rearranging itself into a new order. Still, it’s a bit sad, in a way, because they know him, know how his very peculiar brand of relentless belief in a greater good and wide-eyed idealism can’t really last through the waves of time.  
  
Vietnam remembers her own people running away, the Chinese Sea full of corpses desperate for asylum. Revolution, at last, hadn’t been nearly as nice as it should have, and she still didn’t know how to have it, how to feel, past memories of New Year’s celebrations turning to shit and cities roaring with chaos.  
  
“I don’t,” she says. “I heard he’s changed.”  
“As all of us are, I believe.”  
  
She sips her coffee, very sweet, very dark, uneasily. It tastes like France, as everything ever does in this country. Algeria watches her, and he doesn’t know what to feel just yet, probably, dark eyes and tan skin, the smell of tangerines and olives never really leaving him. New enemies, new stories, Morocco, China, Cambodia, America and the rest of them, all springing from a world that was suddenly changing so fast.   
  
There isn’t much to say, aside from the look of the Seine today, how cold and freezing Europe is, about things that do not matter. The war, the wars, they’re not over, not yet, not for Algeria and Vietnam, for the orphans of the last century, except maybe for France, old, rotting France.  
  
This isn’t the streets of Oran, or the warm nights of Saigon during the dry season, but it’s okay, in a way. Their story, neither friendship or love, isn’t over just yet.  
  
.


End file.
